We arrived in Tokyo late last night. Our departure was delayed by a few hours, but we ended up sleeping most of the flight, and so we landed relatively refreshed and ready to tackle all of the late-night snacks at the closest 7-11.
The onboarding process for taking the train into the city was as easy as it could have been. I was able to add and then load their Suica card directly from Apple Wallet. (Thanks for the tips, everyone.)
Here's us, taking up too much room on the train with our two ski/snowboard bags.
However, I will say that Shinjuku station -- which is the busiest train station in the world, by far -- is just as confusing as I remember it. Between the vastness of the station and overall network, and the language barrier, it can be a real challenge to figure out where to go to make your connection.
But ultimately, we made it to our hotel, and to 7-11. In case you're wondering, and to give you an idea of scale, my legs absolutely hang off the end of these beds.
I have no idea what the circular thing was in this bowl, but it was good, hot water was readily available in the store for these purposes, and I was able to supercharge the entire thing with some charcoal-grilled chicken from a separate package.
The first time I visited Japan, I had a cell phone with one of the first ever color screens. I thought this was a huge deal. And, I had a standalone digital camera that was about the size of a small wallet. I also thought this was a huge deal. Sadly, I'm not sure where most of these photos are today (though I still have the phone).
So it's exciting to me that I'm now writing posts and sharing photos with all of you on a decentralized and open ledger that is intended to act as permanent information storage. In theory at least, these posts and these photos will be around forever, even if Paragraph as a company goes away.
Which means I'll be able to look back on the above photo and remind myself that I took it from the window above my hotel bed when I woke up at 530AM, I couldn't sleep, and I decided to just get up and write today's post. Tokyo is such an awesome city. It's great to be back after all these years.
It's almost that time of year again.
Later this week, marks the start of our 14th annual ski and snowboard trip. Our group missed two years because of the pandemic and so, technically, this should be the 16th annual, but who's counting? This is a trip that happens every year like clockwork and, this year, we're checking off a big mountain destination that has been on many/most of our bucket lists: Hokkaido, Japan. If you read my recent post called "The Secrets of the greatest snow on earth," you might remember that Hokkaido is one of the snowiest places on the planet. Every January, there is a 90% probability that the island will get at least 100 inches of snow!
Before Hokkaido, we're also going to be spending a handful of days in Tokyo. The first and only time I've been to Japan was back in undergrad, over 20 years ago. I'm really excited to see how the city has evolved, and to see it with fresh eyes. I was in the early days of studying architecture back then, and just starting to understand my obsession with cities. So I'm sure that I'll have a much different appreciation this time around. Neat B is also coming to experience Japan's legendary powder and she's never been to Asia before. So I'm equally excited to see Japan anew through her eyes.
This past weekend we started making our travel list. Generally, our approach is to list the things we absolutely want to see and do, including noteworthy architecture, and then let the rest happen organically. Often some of the best travel experiences are the ones you didn't plan. I also have a friend from graduate school that now runs his own practice in Tokyo: Kenta Fukunishi Architecture Office. Our group is going to lean on him to show us what's hot in contemporary Japanese architecture. My buddies and I haven't seen him since 2009.
I'm also hoping that some of you will have recommendations for Tokyo and/or Hokkaido, which is why I'm blogging about this trip a little early. Tokyo is obviously massive. It's the largest metro area in the world. And so more than most places, it demands curation. We're not even going to make a dent over the course of a few days there. If any of you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comment section below or shoot me an email at
We arrived in Tokyo late last night. Our departure was delayed by a few hours, but we ended up sleeping most of the flight, and so we landed relatively refreshed and ready to tackle all of the late-night snacks at the closest 7-11.
The onboarding process for taking the train into the city was as easy as it could have been. I was able to add and then load their Suica card directly from Apple Wallet. (Thanks for the tips, everyone.)
Here's us, taking up too much room on the train with our two ski/snowboard bags.
However, I will say that Shinjuku station -- which is the busiest train station in the world, by far -- is just as confusing as I remember it. Between the vastness of the station and overall network, and the language barrier, it can be a real challenge to figure out where to go to make your connection.
But ultimately, we made it to our hotel, and to 7-11. In case you're wondering, and to give you an idea of scale, my legs absolutely hang off the end of these beds.
I have no idea what the circular thing was in this bowl, but it was good, hot water was readily available in the store for these purposes, and I was able to supercharge the entire thing with some charcoal-grilled chicken from a separate package.
The first time I visited Japan, I had a cell phone with one of the first ever color screens. I thought this was a huge deal. And, I had a standalone digital camera that was about the size of a small wallet. I also thought this was a huge deal. Sadly, I'm not sure where most of these photos are today (though I still have the phone).
So it's exciting to me that I'm now writing posts and sharing photos with all of you on a decentralized and open ledger that is intended to act as permanent information storage. In theory at least, these posts and these photos will be around forever, even if Paragraph as a company goes away.
Which means I'll be able to look back on the above photo and remind myself that I took it from the window above my hotel bed when I woke up at 530AM, I couldn't sleep, and I decided to just get up and write today's post. Tokyo is such an awesome city. It's great to be back after all these years.
It's almost that time of year again.
Later this week, marks the start of our 14th annual ski and snowboard trip. Our group missed two years because of the pandemic and so, technically, this should be the 16th annual, but who's counting? This is a trip that happens every year like clockwork and, this year, we're checking off a big mountain destination that has been on many/most of our bucket lists: Hokkaido, Japan. If you read my recent post called "The Secrets of the greatest snow on earth," you might remember that Hokkaido is one of the snowiest places on the planet. Every January, there is a 90% probability that the island will get at least 100 inches of snow!
Before Hokkaido, we're also going to be spending a handful of days in Tokyo. The first and only time I've been to Japan was back in undergrad, over 20 years ago. I'm really excited to see how the city has evolved, and to see it with fresh eyes. I was in the early days of studying architecture back then, and just starting to understand my obsession with cities. So I'm sure that I'll have a much different appreciation this time around. Neat B is also coming to experience Japan's legendary powder and she's never been to Asia before. So I'm equally excited to see Japan anew through her eyes.
This past weekend we started making our travel list. Generally, our approach is to list the things we absolutely want to see and do, including noteworthy architecture, and then let the rest happen organically. Often some of the best travel experiences are the ones you didn't plan. I also have a friend from graduate school that now runs his own practice in Tokyo: Kenta Fukunishi Architecture Office. Our group is going to lean on him to show us what's hot in contemporary Japanese architecture. My buddies and I haven't seen him since 2009.
I'm also hoping that some of you will have recommendations for Tokyo and/or Hokkaido, which is why I'm blogging about this trip a little early. Tokyo is obviously massive. It's the largest metro area in the world. And so more than most places, it demands curation. We're not even going to make a dent over the course of a few days there. If any of you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comment section below or shoot me an email at
In terms of what you can expect here on the blog, expect photos and expect to see me measuring the width of impossibly narrow streets. I'll also be sharing a lot of content to our Globizen Instagram account, so make sure you follow us there. As always, this blog will get updated every morning -- though I'm sure I'll screw up the time zones on the way there and not know what day it is. And as always, I'll have my Fujifjilm camera on me. It's also my goal on this trip to capture more videos. It's something I love to do, but never have seem to make time for. Let's change that.
Here's to the 14th annual!
In terms of what you can expect here on the blog, expect photos and expect to see me measuring the width of impossibly narrow streets. I'll also be sharing a lot of content to our Globizen Instagram account, so make sure you follow us there. As always, this blog will get updated every morning -- though I'm sure I'll screw up the time zones on the way there and not know what day it is. And as always, I'll have my Fujifjilm camera on me. It's also my goal on this trip to capture more videos. It's something I love to do, but never have seem to make time for. Let's change that.
Here's to the 14th annual!
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